In March 2010, a decision was announced to create an ultra-modern scientific and technological complex Skolkovo in the Moscow region, the Russian analogue of Silicon (or Silicon) Valley in the United States.
The organizers and authors of the Skolkovo project, an innovative center for the development and commercialization of new technologies, call it “an investment in our own future”. It should unite the branches of education, technology, science, business and urban planning.
It is planned to develop five priority areas in Skolkovo: telecommunications, IT, energy, nuclear and biomedical technologies. Zhores Alferov, Nobel Prize Laureate in Physics, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, has been appointed scientific supervisor and co-chairman of the scientific complex.
The innovative complex will be located 22 km from the Moscow Ring Road in the Odintsovo District of the Moscow Region, near the village of Skolkovo. On 400 hectares, which is more than twice the size of the London Olympic Park, there will be a research university for 1,800 students, a "technopark" with 1,000 start-ups, and corporate R&D centers.
For the development of the Skolkovo center, the Fund Council chose an urban planning concept developed by the French company AREP, which assumes a phased implementation of the project, variability and flexibility.
The entire Skolkovo space was divided into five villages (in terms of the number of innovative areas), which will be united by a common guest area with cultural facilities, a research university, medical institutions, parks and sports areas.
It is assumed that about 15,000 people will live in Skolkovo and about 7,000 will come to the innovation center to work.
Housing and all service infrastructures, as well as jobs, according to the urban planning project, will be located within walking distance. All waste must be disposed of on the territory of Skolkovo; it is planned to widely use the energy of solar panels and purify rainwater. In the innovation town, they are going to build energy-active and energy-passive buildings that produce more energy than they consume.
